Comparative Law and Culture

Comparative law and culture is one of the hallmarks of research at Warwick Law School. It is conducted in a variety of ways, including large scale empirical projects (Jackie Hodgson, French criminal justice; Ralf Rogowski, Law and policy of European labour markets); Historical studies (Julio Faundez, Evolution of Chilean law and democracy; Constitutionalism in Latin American and Africa); European collaboration (Hugh Beale, European contract law; Graham Moffat, Trusts and a European Code; Hodgson, Safeguards for suspects in the EU; Gary Watt, Mortgages and a Common Core of European Private Law); Lorraine Talbot’s work on comparative corporate governance; and the development of inter-disciplinary approaches (Watt, European and American approaches to law and literature); as well as theoretical approaches; and international curriculum development (Ann Stewart, Gender, law and judging in India). In some instances, comparative research informs policy and has a clear impact (Hodgson, Comparative approaches to using intelligence as evidence in terrorism cases, Home Office; Rogowski, Advocacy and legal advice in fighting corruption; Beale, European Commission Expert Group on a Common Frame of Reference on Contract Law), and individuals' expertise is relied on directly by the courts (Hodgson, Special Immigration Appeals Commission; European Arrest Warrants; French/Canadian extradition; Cole, US Federal Court).

Staff are engaged in comparative research across a wide range of legal subjects and often in collaboration with international partners. For example, Dalvinder Singh's work on banking regulation of UK and US financial markets; Stewart's work on the contribution of NGOs to the implementation of domestic violence legislation in India and the UK; Pogany's work on comparative human rights and on human and minority rights in East Central Europe, with particular reference to Roma and Jews; Shaheen Ali's work contrasting Islamic normative frameworks and 'Western' European socio-legal systems; Rogowski's comparative research of labour law and industrial relations and of the legal profession; Dwijen Rangnekar's comparative analysis of different countries' response to the TRIPS agreement in the areas of agriculture and biotechnology; Andrew Choo's work on human rights across different systems of criminal evidence; the contributions of Burridge to training lawyers for adversarial practice in Chile; and Cole's work on dispute resolution processes in different social and cultural contexts.